Sticks and Stones
by SapphoAndCyanide
Summary: Catherine volunteers to take in a little girl from a murder case and soon finds herself growing attached to the child. CS. CHAPTER 4 IS FINALLY UP!
1. Chapter 1

Sticks and Stones

(I'm officially out of titles now in case anyone is wondering. I had to steal this one off the board game extension pack.)

Summary: Catherine volunteers to take in a little girl from a murder case & soon finds herself growing attached to the child. Cath/Sara

**Disclaimer: CSI is property of CBS.**

**Rating: T, just to be safe and because it's femslash. And if the idea of two women being in a relationship bothers you, grow up, it's the 21st century.**

Catherine Willows walked through the front door of the small suburban house and climbed the stairs until she found her co-workers, Nick Stokes and Gil Grissom already processing the scene in the master bedroom.

"Whatda we got?" She asked and stood next to the bed where Nick was snapping photos.

"Two bodies, male and female, early thirties. They've been identified as Claire and Matt Sheridan." Grissom replied without missing a beat.

"T.O.D?"

"David estimates 5 to 6 hours tops."

"…Bruising around the wife's neck." Catherine noted. "Suggests that the C.O.D might have been strangulation? What about the husband?"

Nick gestured to the bloody spots on the dead man's shirt.

"Stabbing. Makes sense. A man would be harder to strangle than a woman. Anyone else is the house?"

"Yea, police found the daughter hiding in her bedroom closet." Nick started. "Haven't been able to get her to talk but neighbor's say her name is Lindsey. Just turned 7 yesterday."

"Poor kid." Catherine shook her head in sadness. Nick nodded.

Grissom took off his latex gloves and adjusted his glasses. "It's a good thing you got here when you did Cath. Sara needs my help with a possible suicide on the strip."

"Sara?" Catherine perked up at the mention of her girlfriend.

"Yes,"

Sara and Catherine had been dating almost 5 years. The couple had decided to tell their friends at the lab about them a year and a half into the relationship. Everyone had been so supportive, especially Gil.

"Why didn't you send me to help? You know I'd…" She stopped when she noticed the knowing look on the older CSI's face. "She told you about our fight, didn't she?"

Grissom nodded. "She needed to get some things off her chest. I know it's none of my business but I was a little confused. _You _want kids but _she _doesn't?"

Catherine shook her head.

"No, we both want kids. We just can't decide on adoption or artificial insemination."

Nick decided to comment. "Ya know Cath, if you two need a donor I'd be more than happy to volunteer a couple of my soldiers." He winked playfully though he fully meant it.

"Nick, have you been hanging around with Greg again?" Catherine chuckled.

"No more than usual. Why?"

The blonde just shook her head and walked past him.

"What!"

…--…--…

About an hour later Catherine and Nick walked outside, newly collected evidence in hand, only to find half the neighborhood crammed onto the sidewalk in their pajamas.

Over the years Catherine had learned to ignore them. Because after all, it was only human nature to be curious about these things. But unless they could help with the case they really didn't matter. And as long as they kept behind the yellow tape they were no concern of hers.

After loading her things back into her Tahoe she spotted a little blonde girl sitting in the front seat of a patrol car with a blanket wrapped around her, staring off into space. Catherine walked up to Brass, who was standing guard of the car.

"That the daughter?" She motioned over his shoulder.

"Yea, can't get her to say a word though. She's gonna have to see a therapist to check for shock."

"Does she have any other family? Grandparents? Older siblings?"

Jim shook his head. "Nope, only child just like both of her parents. No known grandparents. So social services is gonna be here soon to take her."

Catherine frowned. She hated seeing kids being taken away in situations like this, especially ones so young. Just then she got an idea. She knew Sara would probably kill her later but she didn't care at this point.

"I could take her."

"What?" He demanded in disbelief.

"C'mon Brass. She's been through enough for one day. We both know the last thing this poor girl needs are police officers in her face all night…Uh, no offense."

"None taken…" Jim huffed before rubbing his head. "Alright, you can take her. But you gotta sign a consent form saying that you are legally responsible for her until we can locate family or set up foster care, got it?"

"Yea,"

Brass nodded. "Ok, I'll be right back. I gotta make a call." That said he walked off.

Catherine knelt down next to the little girl who only glanced at her for a second before spacing out again.

"Hi there, my name's Catherine. What's yours?"

Nothing.

"I heard your name's Lindsey. That sure is a pretty name."

This time Lindsey looked directly into Catherine's blue eyes.

"You look like my mommy." She said in a tiny voice before pretending to be interested with the stuffed bear grasped tightly in her hands.

Catherine felt her heart break for the little girl. She didn't deserve this. No child did.

"Is that a good thing?"

Lindsey nodded.

Catherine smiled. "Good, so, um, you're going to be staying with me tonight. Is that ok?"

She nodded again.

"Cool, ok let's go." She offered her hand for the little girl to take but instead she threw herself into Catherine's arms.

"Please don't let whoever hurt my mommy and daddy hurt me too." She whispered into Catherine's neck.

Catherine picked up the little girl and nodded. "I won't sweetie, I promise. You're safe now."

**TBC?**

**You tell me. Next chapter Sara meets Lindsey. How does she react?**

**(Sorry I don't have more for you but I'm kinda tired now. Plus species 2 is comin on. You ever seen Marg in that thing? Holy hell.)**

**Nicole**


	2. Chapter 2

**Wow, I got such great feedback for this story, thanks guys!**

**Disclaimer: CSI is property of CBS and all that good stuff.**

…--…--…

**Chapter 2-**

Catherine got home a few hours earlier tonight. She laid the sleeping Lindsey down on the couch and covered her with a blanket before going to the fridge and pulling out a bottle of water. She stood there for a minute before realizing that there was nothing for her to do. Since Sara wasn't due home for at least another 2 hours she decided to sit at the other end of the couch and just relax. It had been a rough night and she was beat, all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep. But she had to be awake when Sara got back to explain the sudden presence of a child.

She managed to stay awake for about half an hour until she finally surrendered into the soft couch and drifted to sleep.

…--…--…

The sound of keys jingling at the front door brought Catherine out of her peaceful slumber. She sat up and glanced over to make sure Lindsey was ok before standing up and stretching just as Sara walked in.

"Hey babe, omigod you wouldn't _believe _the case Grissom had me working on tonight!" Sara started as she set down her things on the kitchen table before going over and kissing Catherine on the cheek.

"Uh huh, the one over on the strip?"

"Yea…" Sara looked over the older woman's shoulder and saw the tiny sleeping figure on the couch. "What's with the kid?"

Catherine shrugged her shoulders like she brought home kids everyday. "Oh that's Lindsey."

She raised an eyebrow. "The little girl from your double homicide?"

"That'd be her." Catherine nodded.

"What's she doin here Cath?"

"She's going to be staying with us for awhile. At least until Brass can locate some family or at least a foster family."

"And you were going to discuss this with me _when _exactly?" Sara demanded. Not in an angry tone, just a slightly forceful one.

"I would've called, really. I just didn't want to bother you." Catherine felt herself tense up.

The brunette rolled her eyes. "I think this definitely qualifies as one of those things you can bother me about."

"I couldn't let Child Protective Services take her Sar, she'd be stuck at some police station the rest of the night, uniforms swarming in her face asking her questions! She doesn't need that." Catherine all but screamed.

Sara stuck out a hand.

"Cath, shh, it's ok. I get it. If anyone knows more about the subject it's me. I guess I'm just a little hurt that you didn't tell me first."

Catherine frowned and wrapped her arms around Sara's waist, pulling her closer. "I'm sorry." She apologized quietly.

Sara kissed her softly. "Don't be, you didn't do anything wrong. You were just using your motherly instincts. Catherine smirked.

Just then Lindsey started whimpering in her sleep. Her head thrashing back and forth.

Catherine knelt down next to the couch "She's having a nightmare."

"Do we wake her up?" Sara asked and watched as the little girl started crying.

Catherine answered the question by sitting down on the couch and cradling Lindsey in her lap. She wiped a few pieces of blonde hair off her sweat-covered forehead and began to rock back and forth slowly.

"Shh, Lindsey, you're ok. It's just a nightmare. Shh."

Moments later Lindsey opened her eyes and slowly stopped crying until it was just reduced to sniffling and wiping her cheeks. She stared up at Catherine for the longest time and pushed herself closer into her body.

"I want my mommy." She managed in between sniffles and grabbed onto Catherine's hand.

Catherine kissed the top of her head. "I know you do sweetie."

Sara couldn't help but smile at the sight in front of her. Catherine handled that so well.

Lindsey was already falling back to sleep when Sara sat down next her girlfriend.

"I can't wait till we have kids of our own. You're going to make a great mom." She whispered.

Catherine grinned widely and rested her head on Sara's shoulder while still holding Lindsey.

**TBC….**

**Next chapter: Lindsey has to go see a therapist to check for shock and there's a break in the case.**

**Reviews make me smile guys! So give me lots of em!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: CSI is property of CBS. I own nothing.**

**A/N: Sorry for the wait on this…I finally got off my ass and decided to do something productive. I guess I'm a lil down cuz school is startin back up soon.**

…--…--…

**Chapter 3-**

(2 days later)

"Are you _positive _you don't need me to come to Lindsey's doctor's appointment with you?" Sara asked and watched as Catherine dug around in the kitchen cabinets.

Catherine glanced at her briefly before returning to her task. "Sar, I told you. It's ok. I can do it. Besides, I'm actually offwork today. You're not."

Sara crossed her arms and mock pouted. "Thanks for reminding me."

"How come we have _nothing _in this house for a kid to eat?" Catherine gave up.

She shrugged. "Uh, I dunno, maybe because up until a couple days ago we had no kids in the house?"

"You're such a smart—" Catherine stopped mid sentence when she saw Lindsey out of the corner of her eye at the kitchen table. Sara chuckled and went and sat down next to her.

"Hey kiddo, do you like eggs?"

She shook her head; the ponytail Catherine had given her that morning swinging back and forth.

"Cereal bars? Fruit?"

"No,"

Catherine glimpsed at her watch and sighed.

"I'll just pick her up something on the way. We gotta go."

Sara walked the two to the front door and spoke up while Catherine helped Lindsey with her coat. "Ok, you _positive_ you don't want me to come with? I don't mind."

"Hun…" She pulled her arm through her own coat then leaned over and kissed her lover. "I got it covered. Why do you keep pressing it?"

"Because I know how much you just _love_ hospitals." The brunette emphasized the word 'love' sardonically.

"Yea, well you're not much better." Catherine muttered. "Look, after the appointment I'll take Lindsey grocery shopping, give you time to sleep before shift starts." She kissed her again before ushering Lindsey out the front door.

Sara let out a long aspirated sigh before heading back to her bedroom, silently hoping that Catherine really _was _going to be at alright at the hospital considering how much they both hated them with a passion now.

Back when Catherine and Sara had first started dating Catherine's ex husband, Eddie, had found out about them and went to Sara's apartment to confront her. Basically he demanded that Sara break it off with Catherine or else. Sara refused and that's when he just snapped. He attacked her then fled. When Catherine found her a few hours later she was lying on the floor bleeding to death.

Sara was in the hospital for almost a month because of what Eddie did to her. She was in a coma for a week. Catherine felt so bad she didn't leave her side once. When they finally caught Eddie he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. To this day neither woman could walk into a hospital without all those painful memories flooding back

…--…--…

(the hospital)

Catherine had only been sitting in the waiting room for half an hour when the hospital therapist came back out.

"Ms. Willows,"

"Catherine," She insisted.

"_Catherine_," He corrected himself and sat down next to her. "We can't get Lindsey to say anything. Have you been having this problem since she came to stay with you?"

She shook her head. "No, she wasn't talking to anyone at her house the night of her parents' murder either. As far as I know my partner Sara and I are the only ones she's spoken to since then."

The doctor nodded. "Alright, then maybe you can help us."

"Anything."

They both stood up. "Follow me, maybe you can convince her to talk. As far as everything else goes. We gave her a physical and found no signs of abuse."

"Always good news." The redhead sighed inwardly and followed the older man into a tiny exam room. As soon as Lindsey spotted Catherine she jumped out of her seat.

"Catherine!" She cheered and ran up to her, wrapping her tiny arms around her waist.

Catherine hugged her before getting down to the girl's level.

"Linds, remember what we talked about in the car? About how important it was for you to talk to the doctors?"

"But I don't wanna talk to them." She objected and crossed her arms.

"You have to. They need to make sure you're ok."

Lindsey took a minute to contemplate this before speaking up.

"Can we leave after that?"

"Yep."

The little girl nodded. "Ok."

Catherine smirked. "That a girl." She stood up and walked over to the chair opposite the doctor's desk and sat down, Lindsey crawled onto her lap.

"Thank you Catherine,"

"No problem."

"Ok Lindsay, I'm going to ask you a few simple questions."

Lindsay nodded.

…--…--…

As soon as Sara got into the lab that night she went and found Greg sitting in his usual area lip syncing to Marilyn Manson while tapping his hands on the counter top to keep the beat. Sara shook her head and turned off the CD player. Greg spun around when he noticed the music had stopped but he was still singing.

His ears turned bright red when he saw Sara.

"Hey Sar,"

"Hey Greggo, nice singing, I got your page. You said you got somethin on the Sheridan case?"

He instantly switched back to work mode and pulled a few pieces of paper out of the printer. "Yea, Nick found a couple hairs on Matt Sheridan's clothes that didn't match anyone in the family, so, I ran it through the database to see if the DNA could get a match. It came up with a Karen Garcia."

"Who's she?"

"She…my dear…is Matt Sheridan's ex wife."

"Are you serious?"

"Why would I joke about something like this?" Greg smirked but hid it when Sara looked like she was about to slap him on the back of the head.

"We interviewed the ex already."

"She have an alibi?"

Sara nodded. " Had a conference in New York. Came back two days after the murders. According to her, she hasn't seen Matt in over a year."

"Then how'd her hair get on his clothes? On his pajamas no less."

"Beats the hell out of me. She's probably lying. Got anything else for me?"

"Actually…" The young CSI beamed and practically bounced to another counter where he grabbed a manila then came back and handed it to the brunette.

"Coroner's Report…seems our family man had a little drug problem. Mainly cocaine, nasal cavity was so torn up it was a miracle his nose didn't collapse on itself." He chuckled at the last part, when Sara didn't he got serious again. "Uh, anyway, Doc also found lethal traces of cocaine in the wife's system, but as far as he could tell she didn't snort it…"

"…She ingested it." Sara finished for him. "Someone _forced_ her to ingest it rather."

Greg nodded.

"Exacto-mudo…The weird thing is that she died from strangulation."

"Drug overdose took to long, murderer got restless…so they choke her?"

"That's what I'm guessing."

"The husband died from the stab wound to the abdomen, right?"

"_5 _stab wounds, actually." Nick corrected as he walked up next to Sara.

Sara furrowed her brow in confusion. "So why try to OD the wife only to strangle her in the end, and stab the husband?"

Nick shrugged. "Maybe there was more than one killer present. Maybe, while Matt was being stabbed Claire woke up and tried to get away but the other perp choked her."

Just then Sara got an idea. "Hey Nicky, would you mind comin with me to the crime scene? I wanna get a look at Lindsay's bedroom."

"Sure…why?"

"I'll explain on the way."

TBC… 

…--…--…

Cliffie! Ok, so that didn't have much Cath/Sara interaction but I was trying to focus more on the case…oh and if you're wondering how come Sara was working Catherine's case it was because Grissom gave Catherine a few days off to watch Lindsay.

Now…we all know that one thing that keeps stories like this going: Reviews! Well, that and my love of Catherine…but that's a whole other story. Hehe…

Reviews make my world go round…and round…and round…

Nicole.


	4. Chapter 4

**OMG!!! I hate myself SO much right now! I haven't had ANY motivation to write, at all…I don't know what happened. I'm sorry guys.**

**Disclaimer for the REST of the story: CSI is property of CBS and I will never own either of them…so-your mom. lol**

…**--…--…**

Sara unlocked the front door of the Sheridan house and stepped inside, Nick right behind her, both CSI's carrying their field kits. She headed straight for the stairs and was climbing them in 2's.

"Ya mind filling me in on what we're doing here, Sar?" Nick asked. The brunette had promised to inform him on the way but instead had stayed dead silent.

She ignored his question until they were at the top of the stairs.

"Just following a hunch." Sara replied in almost a whisper, almost as if talking any louder would jinx something. Nick just sighed and followed his partner into Lindsey's room.

"We know Matt Sheridan did drugs, right? Well, sometimes—in narcotics cases involving children, the parents, guardian- whoever; will stash the drugs in the kids' stuffed toys. I mean, who's going to ever suspect there's coke in the Winnie the Pooh bear?" The brunette picked up a stuffed tiger (it feeling the heaviest) sitting atop a shelf above Lindsey's pink covered bed and examined it.

The Texan cocked an eyebrow. "And you know this _because_?"

Sara hesitated before replying. "…I handled a few cases like that back in Frisco." She lied. She didn't want to tell him the real reason she knew this is because her own parents used to hide their stash like that…Only Catherine and Gil knew about her past, and she sometimes regretted ever telling Grissom at all.

She set the toy on the bed before setting her field kit next to it and opening it up, she pulled out a box-cutter and sliced open the stomach of the tiger doll.

Nick watched over her shoulder and smirked when there, sitting inside the fluff, was a bag of white powder. Sara smiled triumphantly and Nick patted her back.

"Good call Sar!" He cheered.

"Thanks Nick. Hey, could you get the rest of those toys down and gimme a hand cutting them open? I'll take the pictures."

"Sure thing partner." The other CSI nodded and did as he was asked.

An hour, and 14 stuffed animals later, the pair had discovered 9 more bags of cocaine; Sara had documented the findings while Nick did the searching.

Sara rested her elbow on Nick's shoulder as they surveyed the scene in front of them. Animal fluff everywhere while the 14 toys lined up neatly in rows on the bed. The drugs sitting next to its respectable animal.

"I think we just found our motive for murder, Nicky."

"Yup, now we just gotta find out who-dunnit and with what then we are in business."

**TBC**

…--…--…

Yup, so after months and months of stalling, I'm back…More to follow.

Nicole


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